BROOKE LAMBERT.
r TIMM& ET TENACEM PROPOSITI VIRD11.1
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.,
Sin,—The late Vicar of Greenwich had the old-fashioned Englishman's love for Horace. And the man may be known in no small measure from his book, "a Man, a fair man, and firm of purpose." His, indeed, was a type of English Church- manship which is fast disappearing from our midst, not without loss both to Church and State. And its traditions demand recognition in the name of the commonweal. He was a Churchman, but the Man came first,—a man of the world, a lover of good dinners and good stories ; yet even those who knew him thus knew him, if they knew him at all, to be still more a lover of good causes. The chairman to- night of a dinner, ready with his toast and his repartee, but the chairman an hour later at a midnight meeting of the Tramway Union ; and next morning in his library-chair, at half-past six, breakfast over, buried in his book, or sermon, or report, or letters, which were never late. Laborabat, he tried to work,—he wished that to be the only word on his tomb. Work had become to him what his mill was to the miller in the old English song,—wife, child, and something more. But always in the miller's spirit : "I care for nobody, no, not I, and nobody cares for me." He went his own way, and wanted everybody else to go theirs. He cared intensely, though he seldom showed it, for his friends and for the friendless. He knew exactly what he wanted to do, and, like a Roman road, he went straight at it. He left his mark on everything to which he put his hand, notably on the administration of charity and the Poor-law in all their branches. He had a truly Roman gift for organisa.
tion ; but he always sought to play the role of candid friend, even to his own institutions. Though no Gallio in matters ecclesiastical or political, he loved to keep an open mind, and he tried to keep an open field for all comers. These principles, crowned by the conviction that religion was a national interest and not a preserve of the ecclesiastical Orders, constituted his Broad Churchmanship. They were the grounds of his sober enthusiasm for an Establishment. Pity it seems that his realised ideal of a parish church which could tolerate all forma of worship and utilise all schools of thought, working in perfect harmony with Dissenters and Secularists without her pale for the common weal, did not find scope in the wider circle of Cathedral life. But the example of his statesmanship, founded in personal manliness,
firmness, and fairness, remains.—I am, Sir, &c., U.
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